“He’d always been that way…”  10 min

“A risk I took…”

(Writing inspired by Tinkers by Harding)

            It was fall 1981. Farmers who had taken out bank loans for fancy farm equipment worth more than the land they were farming, were going bankrupt. Foreclosures, auctions, livestock sales were the talk of the rural areas of the Willamette Valley. But this didn’t affect Stanley Swanson in any way…he didn’t go to equipment sales or enter into the gossip at the Lutheran Church on Sunday mornings. He wasn’t like that.

            He’d bought his sixty-nine acres in Evans Valley with cash in 1931 when he and his new bride had come by train with their thirteen cows and a trunk full of Alma’s items for the house. Out from Minnesota they’d come to start a dairy. He’d never borrowed a dime or hired anyone to help with the farm. He was like that: proud, self sufficient, and solid in all ways. He did the farming. Alma did the housework and took care of their daughter and two foster children. Being an orphan himself, Stanley felt it was important to take in foster children as a payback of some sort. But he didn’t much like the antics and silliness of children and left Alma in charge there.

            Everything changed for Stanley the day the stroke blinded him. He’d been tilling his lower alfalfa field when everything went black. In the days that followed, car keys, tractor keys, milking, haying, bill paying, and all chores requiring sight were turned over to others. But from the confines of his walker and rocking chair, he managed to hold the place together and care for his beloved farm until the weeds littered the pathways and tractor trails, skunks and coons nested under the floorboards of the barn, and wasps’ nests hung in great paper globes under the eves of the house. Then, when Stanley could no longer care for himself or the place, he lay down in the woods and died.

Ruth

Motherhood

What a week!  The car got a flat and the furnace broke down.  It’s still winter and the kids have been complaining about how hard it is to get out of bed when it’s so cold. Thankfully they are all off to school, and I can take a break and have a cup of coffee.

My mind wanders back to the good old days when my worries were small – things like what to wear to work, should I get my nails done this week or next, what to do and where to go on the weekend. 

Thank goodness for coffee! It’s invigorating and gives me a good excuse to stop, rest, put my feet up and let the dishes that need doing sit awhile. The quiet is so restful, but I know won’t last. The five year old will need picking up in 3 hours. Better get busy! But no . . . just a few more minutes.

I hear the birds singing. I can see a miraculous display of clouds – white against the blue. I noticed the crocuses coming up yesterday. “Spring always comes”, I tell myself.

I glance down and notice what I threw on after I rolled out of bed this morning – before I poured five bowls of cereal, wiped three runny noses, cramped three pairs of small feet in shoes, looked for lost coats, homework, library books, and backpacks -- and finally shooed them out the door.

I am wearing my old blue house coat. “A house coat,” I think! I had no idea I would end up wearing a house coat like my mother used to wear. I was determined not to turn out like my mother and now I believe I have.

These days I have to check myself before leaving the house to make sure I am not wearing cereal.

****

Words I picked from above: Complaining, wanders, nails, quiet, singing, bowls, determined

“I’m not complaining. I love my life,” I think to myself. I say it out loud to myself in the bathroom mirror. I struggle to shake the sleepiness off and begin the process of plastering a loving, cheerful smile on my face. I want my children to remember their mother as a sweet gentle soul, not a marauding monster wandering about the house biting her nails.

I keep trying every day to be a better mother, but mostly I just become quieter and quieter -- stuffing the rage, the boredom and the exhaustion.

To hide my feelings I sing. When I start singing to the kids, they know things are bad. They become quiet and the chomping and the chewing and the ringing of the spoons against their cereal bowl dies down, and a miraculous quiet settles in. Then I plaster the smile back on, determined to be a better mother. To be Mary Poppins or Mother Theresa. To not be tired and lonely and bored.

In the background I hear the baby begin to squeal. It is like nails on a chalkboard. I just smile broader and brighter.

“I’m not complaining. I love my life.”

Mad Confusion

Like a damn fool, I agreed to come with Ishwar to America. "Rich," he said, "we will be rich. Beautiful houses, fabulous cars, luxurious clothes. We will live like maharajahs!"

But, no, we live in a rat and cockroach infested apartment in Oakland, a town so full of drug addicts and thieves that they have to kill each other to survive. What do I know of the blue green Pacific Ocean and the sandy beaches that I saw in pictures before we came?  Nothing, I tell you, nothing.

I sit and watch TV, game shows with people like me who wish they had more money or soap operas about the rich Americans who invent a stream of problems to make their lives seem important. I feel nothing for these people and even less for the commercials for drugs and deodorant.

My formerly honorable and respectful children come home from school talking about Facebook and dances. They listen to hip-hop and rap music. I have to cover my ears in my own home to keep my sanity. Do they study? I don't know. I only see them on their IPhones all day.

All is mad confusion to me, but I miss the familiar mad confusion of my own country. In the old days I would spend hours in the open markets bargaining for food, and even more time sitting in the shade of a patio talking with friends. Now I hate to go out. People can't understand my accent, although I think my English is better than theirs. They make fun of me behind my back.

My husband is working two jobs to earn this American dream. We see each other at dinner. He won't allow me to complain about anything. He says he's too tired to listen and he wants the children to be like other Americans. He wants them to fit in.

I may never see my mother and father again. My heart feels as though it might break. Perhaps I will find a neighbor who is Hindu like me. There are Muslims and Punjabis in my neighborhood, but what have I to do with them?